Response Biases in Field Studies of Mental Illness

This paper is concerned with the question of response biases in field studies of rnental illness. Following a discussion of the possible infiuence of two response biases which may affect the validity of science measuressocial and acquiescence the results of a pilot study concerning a psychiatric inventory used by several investigators are presented. Analysis of data from this study reveals that people's evaluation vs to the social desirability of the inventory items is related both to their position in the status hierarchy and to their reports as to whether or not they have experienced the various symptoms constituting the psychiatric inventory. Thus, the relationship between socioeconomic position and mental heatth is affected by people's evah4ations as to the of mentat health inventory items. However, the findings also confiwT1 that the existence of a relationship between socioeconomic position and disorder is not just a result of the hypothesized distortions arising from a response bias.